The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1887-07-14
A WATERY GRAVE.
A SlOOp With Forty Women and
Children CapSIzed
In a Heavy Gaze OF Barren Island
Last Night.
OLly Twelve Of the Entire Nun
Der Saved.
A Reckless Captain Responsible for
The Disaster.

NEW YORK, July 1.-THE slooI
yacht Mystery left Ruffle Bar island in
Canarsie bay at O'Clock last evening
loaded almost to the gunwale with
, women and children. When of Barren
island, on the route to Canarsie, the
yacht capsized and only thirteen of the
forty souls composing her passengers
and crew are known to have been res
cued. The party which was involved
in this terrible disaster was made UT
chiefly of German families residing in
Brooklyn and Long Island City. The
sun was just sinking when the passen-
gers of the Mystery and Christina
gathered on the pier to embark for Ca
narsie. SO many of the men of the
party showed the effects of the beer
they had drank that the shippers
thought 1t was best to put the
women and children on board the
Mystery, which is a cabin yacht,
forty feet long, and rates as a much
safer boat than her consort. The WO-
men protested, but the protest was I'M
needed. The Mystery and it's precious
load swung away from Ruffle Bar pier
at o'clock. The Christiana, as could
be easily seen, was about swinging out
lnO . WAKE, WuSu captain
Henrickson, of the Mystery, said in
hearing of the women who were res
cued that he was going to, get into Ca
narsie first or blow a stick out. Mrs.
Smither, of Green Point, made a most
earnest protest against any more sail,
as the boat was already heaving in a
way that frightened the women almost
into Mysteries. Captain Henrickson de-
clared that he could sail the Mystery
NhwrV oh In Ca T.. III,
order for more sail. Reef knots were
unfastened and the booms dropped
just as a squall of considerable violence
struck the sail. In a second she was
on beam ends and all the people were
struggling in the choppy sea. The
catastrophe was witnessed from tug j.
g. Dean, which was then over two
miles away. For five minutes the
yacht remained on her beam and the
shrouds and bulwarks afforded some
hold for the engulfed people. The
struggle for place to hold on to was
awful. Fully one-half of the drowning
people were children, and mothers made
frantic efforts to get their little ones to
where they could hold on to something.
But one after another they were swept
OFF in the tideway and buoyed by their
clothing, their hands waved in
frantic and unavailing appeals for
got near enough to be of use, a
negro put off from Barren Island
in row boat and was the first to aid
the drowning people. Seven of the
lives saved are to be credited solely to
his efforts. When the Dean arrived
hhere were few of the victims still
above the surface. AS she neared the
scene woman was observed floating
and trying to buoy up her four-year-Old
child, when q man on the guards sud-
denly exclaimed, my God, that is my
wife," and dived to her aid. The wom-
an had alread lost her grip on the child
and was about sinking when he reached
her. He had the choice of saving her
or the child, and he chose the wife. He
and she were soon aboard the Dean,
but the child sank before their eyes.
The next grappled was a woman of
middle age, who had been kept on the
surface by her stoutness. She, howev-
er, was so exhausted that she died in a
few minutes after she was brought
aboard the tug. A child and another
woman also died after they were taken
out, but the Deans willing passengers
and crew succeeded in rescuing five
alive. They estimate the whole load
Mt thirty-seven and the number saved is
only twelve.
LATER.-About one o'clock this af-
ternoon the sloops Homan and Veto
arrived at Canarsie having in tow the
unfortunate sloop Mystery. After
bailing the water out of her eleven
bodies were found in the cabin and
identified. Thirteen bodies have so far
been recovered.